The sixth season of American Idol premiered on the Fox Broadcasting Company as a two-night, four-hour premiere special on January 16 and 17, and ran until May 23, 2007. Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson returned as judges, and Ryan Seacrest returned as host. A new record of 74 million votes were cast in the finale round, and a new record of 609 million votes were cast in the entire season. Jordin Sparks won the competition, while Blake Lewis was the runner-up.
Regional auditions
Contestants were required to be between the ages 16 and 28 on August 6, 2006. Guest judges were used for auditions this season.[1]
Jordin Sparks, this season's winner, originally failed to pass through her audition in Los Angeles,[9] but later won an audition in Seattle as a reward for winning a local Fox-affiliate-sponsored contest called Arizona Idol.[10]
The first round consisted of each contestant singing one song a cappella in front of the judges. Contestants were then told whether they were moving on or going home in groups of six. This extended over the first two days.
The second round took place on the second and third days, and consisted of groups of three or four contestants rehearsing and then performing one of nine pre-selected songs. Groups were reviewed and contestants were then judged individually as to whether they were moving on or going home.
The third round took place on the fourth day, where each contestant performed one song from a pre-selected list accompanied by a piano and backup singers. Contestants were again informed of whether they had made the cut or not.
The final round took place at the Pasadena Civic Center on January 14–15, 2007, just before the regional audition shows began airing. Without any further auditioning, the 40 remaining contestants were reduced to 24. In a process taking a whole day, contestants waited in a sitting room until, one by one, they went up to the center's Gold Room. The three judges told them whether they had made it onto the stage show or were cut. The 24 semifinalists were announced on February 14, 2007.
Semifinals
The live show portion of the semifinals began on February 20, 2007, with the names announced on February 14. Starting with 12 women and 12 men, the women and men performed weekly on separate shows and on the result show, the bottom two male and two female contestants were eliminated. The semifinals took place over three weeks, leaving the other six to form the top 12. The females performed on the first night, followed by the males the next night.
Color key:
This contestant was saved by the public vote.
This contestant was eliminated.
Top 24 (February 20 & 21)
Contestants are listed in the order they performed.
The top 12 finalists were announced on March 8, 2007. As in past years, the top 12 appeared on the annual compilation album while the top 10 participated in the American Idolsummer concert tour. Also as in past years, one finalist was eliminated every week, with the exception of the April 25 show, when all contestants were declared safe. As a result, two of the participants were eliminated on the May 2 results program.
Blake Lewis (25 at the time of the show) was from Bothell, Washington, and auditioned in Seattle. Claiming to be the city's beatboxing champion, Lewis sampled a hip hop tune to the judges before rendering Seal's "Crazy." He passed the auditions, but Simon commented to him: "you are not as good as you think you are."
Phil Stacey (29 at the time of the show) was from Jacksonville, Florida, and auditioned in Memphis. He missed the birth of his daughter to audition.[11] He performed two songs before going through to Hollywood: "My Girl" and "Let's Get It On."
Sanjaya Malakar (17 at the time of the show) was from Federal Way, Washington, and auditioned in Seattle with his sister Shyamali, singing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours." Simon commented that he had a better voice than his sister. Both made it to Hollywood, but Sanjaya was shown tearfully embracing his sister when he made it to the top 40 in Hollywood and she did not.
Gina Glocksen (22 at the time of the show) was from Naperville, Illinois, and auditioned in Memphis. She originally auditioned in the fifth season and made it to Hollywood, but she was cut before the top 40.
Brandon Rogers (29 at the time of the show) was from North Hollywood, California, and auditioned in Los Angeles. After hearing his audition, the judges, including guest judge Olivia Newton-John, were impressed with his vocals. Simon Cowell later mentioned he was the best audition in Los Angeles.
Finals
There were eleven weeks of finals with twelve contestants competing. One contestant was eliminated every week based on the public's votes, with the exception of the top 6 week, where one week featured a non-elimination and the following week a double-elimination.
Color key:
This contestant was saved by the public vote.
This contestant was in the top three.
This contestant was in the bottom two or three, but was saved by the public vote.
This contestant was eliminated.
This contestant won American Idol.
This contestant was the runner-up.
Top 12 – Diana Ross (March 15)
Diana Ross served as a guest mentor this week. Contestants performed one song each from her discography and are listed in the order they performed.
Gwen Stefani served as a guest mentor this week. Contestants performed songs from her discography or songs that inspired her, and are listed in the order they performed.
Top 6 (Idol Gives Back) – Inspirational songs (April 25)
Owing to a special theme week – Idol Gives Back – Ryan Seacrest announced that this week would be a non-elimination, and that the votes cast for this week would be combined with the votes from the following week. Contestants are listed in the order they performed.
Jon Bon Jovi and David Bryan served as guest mentors this week. Contestants performed one song from the Bon Jovi discography, and are listed in the order they performed. Two contestants were eliminated based on the combined votes from last week and this week.
Barry Gibb served as a guest mentor this week. Contestants performed two songs each from the Bee Gees discography and are listed in the order they performed.
Each contestant performed three songs: one chosen by one of the judges, one chosen by the producers, and one chosen by themselves. Contestants are listed in the order they performed.
The finale aired on May 23, 2007, live from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Every past winner of American Idol gave a special performance except for Fantasia, who was appearing in The Color Purple in New York City and was thus unavailable.
After Carrie Underwood performed "I'll Stand by You", Clive Davis gave a speech extolling the state of "the American Idol album franchise," and then presented Underwood with a special award for achieving 6 million U.S. album sales for her album Some Hearts.
^There was no elimination on April 25, as the week held a Idol Gives Back telethon performance. Votes from this week carried into the following week, where the two contestants with the fewest combined votes were eliminated.
American Idol songwriter contest
On the April 3 show, Ryan Seacrest announced the first American Idol songwriting contest. Following an open online submission process, where over 25,000 submissions were received, twenty songs were selected for competition by Simon Fuller and A&R representatives of 19 Entertainment. Beginning on May 2, 2007, and ending on May 8, 2007, with "one online vote per fan", the American public were able to listen to snippets from each song and rate them on the American Idol website. On the May 22 show, the two finalists performed the winning song: "This Is My Now". The song was released as a single by Jordin Sparks.[12]
"Love Me till the Lonely's Gone" – Michael Patzig and Tracey Naples
"The Next Big Thing" – Ray Grant and Sam Sims
"One Night" – Kelley Hill
"Right Here with Me" – Kelli Trontell and Don Gatlin
"Secrets and Lies" – Drew Yowell and Byron Zanos
"Send Me on My Way" – Matthew Rogers and Scott Young
"Someday" – Nelson Kole
"This Is My Now" – Jeff Peabody and Scott Krippayne – Contest Winner
"Tonight" – Kelly Corsino
"Waking in a Dream" – R. J. Martinez and Stacy Hogan
"When You Need a Moment" – Christie Leigh
"With All the Love Your Heart Can Hold" – Robin Randall and Diana De Witt
"You Never Gave Up on Me" – Billy Aerts and Burton Collins
Controversies
There was controversy surrounding the judges' comments over the audition of a Special Olympics participant named Jonathan Jayne.[14]American Idol producer Ken Warwick responded by saying: "It's not a conscious decision, It's just that the further we go in the series, there are less and less good singers, so the numbers are made up by more bad ones." Warwick said that he thinks everyone has the right to audition, and added that in some instances when there are singers with certain disabilities who just want to meet the judges, the producers will "turn the cameras off and bring them in. We give them a good experience."[15]
A series of provocative photos surfaced on the Internet of sontestant Antonella Barba.[16]
On Tuesday, April 17, 2007, the day after the Virginia Tech massacre, while Chris Richardson and Ryan Seacrest were discussing the shooting after Chris's critique, Simon Cowell apparently appeared to be rolling his eyes at the incident, when he was actually speaking to Paula Abdul and did not hear what Chris had said. On the results show the next day, Cowell stated: "I may not be the nicest person in the world, but I would never, ever, ever disrespect those families or those victims, and I felt it was important to set the record straight." To clear Cowell's name, a video was shown on the result show which showed Cowell and Abdul talking with an inset of Chris and Seacrest discussing the shooting. Additionally, Seacrest began the performance show by acknowledging what had happened the day before.
Reception
U.S. Nielsen ratings
Live + same day ratings
American Idol ended the season as the top show of the 2006–2007 TV season. Its Wednesday episodes ranked first with an average of 30.02 million viewers, followed by the Tuesday episodes which averaged 29.54 million. The premiere episode became the series' highest rated debut episode, viewed by 37.44 million viewers and receiving a 15.8/36 Nielsen rating in the Adult 18-49 demographic.[17]
American Idol Extra, a behind-the-scenes show, also returned for a second season, corresponding with the start of the finals in March. It aired on Thursdays on Fox Reality.
On the March 8 results show, Ryan Seacrest announced an initiative to give back to people in poverty in both Africa and the United States, including those affected by Hurricane Katrina. The event took place over two episodes of the series. For every vote cast immediately following the April 24 broadcast, sponsors donated funds to the Charity Projects Entertainment Fund. The fund would distribute the money raised to many charities in the United States as well as in Africa.[37]News Corporation pledged to donate 10 cents for every vote made to the show for the first 50 million calls, that is, up to $5 million. MySpace created a special profile page for the event in order to spread the word. Donations from viewers were accepted by phone and through the website during the April 25 results show, in a manner similar to a telethon. Near the end of the broadcast, Seacrest announced the show had raised $30 million. As of May 1, 2007, over $70 million has been raised as a result of Idol Gives Back.
Between contestant performances, video vignettes showing Seacrest and the judges and visiting and observing squalid conditions in Africa and the United States were aired. Similar vignettes were aired during the results show. For this special, the voting period was doubled to four hours following the show, rather than the usual two. In response to the anticipated call volume, each contestant was assigned two toll free numbers. Over 70 million votes were cast.
The results show was broadcast from two locations—the regular American Idol stage and Walt Disney Concert Hall, which included many celebrity actors and personalities. Ellen DeGeneres co-hosted the event from the Disney Hall stage.
Due to the charity theme of the show, no contestant was eliminated on the April 25 results show. This was a surprise both to viewers, to whom Seacrest promised the "most shocking elimination ever", and to the contestants. When Seacrest seemed about to eliminate Jordin Sparks, he announced that since it was a charity night, none of the contestants would be voted off, and the votes from that week would be added to the votes from the following week, and that two contestants would be eliminated. Both weeks saw a two-hour extension of the regular two-hour voting window, and in the end, the two-week combined voting totaled 135 million votes.
For back-to-back repeat of the performance and results shows in the U.K. on ITV2, Cat Deeley presented additional sections preceding and following each commercial break, and followed the end of the show with a short interview with that week's eliminated contestant.[38]
Music releases
Unlike previous seasons, the top 12 compilation album did not come out while the show was airing. The top 12 recorded studio versions of each of the songs they sang on the show. The songs were available for purchase on AmericanIdol.com as digital downloads through the night of the finale.[39]
Originally, a collage of the finalists' head shots from the top 24 photo shoot was used as album art on AmericanIdol.com, with the title American Idol 6: Greatest Moments; at present, the covers of Sparks' and Lewis' EPs are used instead. The American Idol: Season 6 – "Greatest Hits" & "The Collector's Edition" were eventually released on June 12, 2007. This was the only season where the season's collection was not distributed by Sony BMG/RCA Records.
Sparks' first non-American Idol single was the top hit "Tattoo", which received platinum certification. Her second single was the Billboard Hot 100 number three hit "No Air" with Chris Brown. The song went to number one in several countries, and also topped Billboard's Pop Airplay chart. "No Air" had been certified platinum in April. It stands as the bestselling single by any American Idol contestant. Sparks released a third single off her album, "One Step at a Time", which peaked at number 17. "One Step at a Time" so far sold over a million copies and is certified platinum. Sparks released her second album Battlefield in July 2009. The album's title track became Jordin's fifth top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 10. This made Jordin Sparks the only American Idol contestant to have their first five singles become Top 20 Hits.
Blake Lewis's first single was "Break Anotha!", which failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. His second single, "How Many Words", also failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Shortly afterward, Lewis confirmed that he had been dropped by Arista records. His album sales were just over 300,000. The drop also cancelled his apparent plans for a third single release.
